


amongst the flowers

by serendipitousDescent



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 16:34:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14116443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipitousDescent/pseuds/serendipitousDescent
Summary: Daichi takes in a deep breath. “My name is Sawamura Daichi. Would you like to go out with me? You… I would have really liked to go on a date with you before you made me ask, but I guess that’s what happens when you pick nightshade in the community garden at midnight.”





	amongst the flowers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cunning_wreck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cunning_wreck/gifts).



> Happy Birthday to one cunning_wreck! I hope you have a wonderful birthday <3 
> 
> Also, I actually posted it on time this year!

Amongst the solidly-built homes and welcoming storefronts that make up Sendai, a garden sits. It is a five minute walk from the local high school, which would make it the victim of vandalism in any other town. 

There is little point in vandalizing the community garden when the damage is always gone by morning, hours before anyone of importance would see it. Just as no one worries over whether the plants they need will be in bloom or if too many people have picked the chrysanthemums recently. More are there the next day, without exception. Whether it’s the chrysanthemums or the sage or something a bit rarer. 

One of the little mysteries of Sendai, people tell each other, so no point in thinking too much about it. Then comes a regression in the form of “Oh, did you hear? Matsumoto-san, you know, from down the street, saw the most _beautiful_ man walking through here just last week.” Which is then, more often than not, followed up by a scandalized gasp and a demand for more information. That man is yet another of Sendai’s mysteries, said to bless anyone who catches more of a glimpse of him. 

Or so the gossiping old women like to tell Daichi, whenever he goes to the community garden himself. Their conversations always come back to that, no matter how often he attempts to return to their original topic. 

Attempting to return to the original topic is a danger in itself, when it comes to his awkward conversations in the community garden. None of them have ever seen this beautiful man for themselves, but all of them agree that Daichi should keep an eye out for him, so long as there is no one else in his life. Then they laugh and repeat it when he mentions which leaves make the best base for a good luck spell. 

They probably already know which leaves to use.

No, they definitely know. The problem is that Daichi does not call them out on it, no matter how many times they use the same excuse to start up a conversation. 

Better that they stick to good luck spells, though, and not some of the other things he has a reputation for. Ukai may not have many uses for the elderly women who linger around the community garden, but his nature does make him a bit vindictive. As does the thought of his lent magic being used for causes lower than he deems right, such as when Daichi uses it to make salves to relieve his father’s joint pain.

There is an edge of relief to his low stock of nightshade, because of that. Low enough to warrant making a late night trip to the community garden, the tincture Ukai wants for first thing the next morning hanging over his head. Most everyone should be at home, perhaps already in bed or just about there. Right where Daichi would prefer to be, in all honesty.

Except the last time Daichi attempted to prepare this particular tincture during the day, rather than the middle of the night, something happened. What exactly happened is beyond him, but Ukai was in a fluster for an entire week and refused him access to magic. In the end, all Daichi found out is that Takeda was involved, which was either a really good thing or a really bad thing. 

That was about when Daichi stopped asking questions, actually. 

Better not to question a tengu on his confusing relationship with the local poet. Everything he has found out about them over these past few years only added to his confusion. 

Which leaves Daichi slipping past the gates of the community garden. Shadowy lumps surround him, carefully planted into straight rows. Only the slightest bit of moonlight from overhead helps differentiate one plant from the next, closer to cloaked strangers in the dark. Having Ukai here with him would be nice, if he had thought to ask before. Or Asahi, at the very least, although Asahi would be more panicked about walking through a harmless garden than Daichi. 

His footsteps are muffled by the dirt beneath him, but colour is drained from his sight. A bit of luck will help him pick the nightshade from the strawberries, but little else. Good thing that Daichi puts little importance on the rumours about people going missing here in dead of night. 

All of those rumours were probably started by high schoolers, anyways, in an effort to rile up their friends. Tsukishima was the cause of five or six such rumours, back in high school. 

Tall sunflowers greet each visitor during the day, marking each new row of plants. They do not greet him now, instead the imposing figure of one such flower making him hesitate along the last row. Each moment of lingering makes the feeling that the sunflower will uproot itself and attack him where he stands grow. 

Turning his back on the sunflowers does not make Daichi feel much better, but that does not stop him from hurrying down the row. The nightshade is hidden away in the back corner, after all, tucked away from sight. Just far enough out of the way to catch someone’s attention when he goes to gather its berries, explanations left ungiven. 

Daichi crouches right where he always does, the spot made unfamiliar by the shadows cast over him. True to its name, those same shadows turn the nightshade near invisible. Lighting a flame is simple measure and there is comfort to having that bit of fire floating around his head, not that it is any easier to pick out the berries beneath the leaves. 

A grimace crosses his face as he lightly feels around the nightshade. It is dangerous for a reason, though whether that changes things depends on whether the garden deems him a threat. That should be an easy decision after so many years of visiting, but… 

Well, magic users wandering around the local garden in the dead of night might be exempt to conditions like past precedent. There is little logic to Sendai’s mysteries, and applying logic to magical gardens will not help him here. Besides, the last time Daichi found himself in a similar situation, he was applying cream to his burnt fingertips every day for a month afterwards.

“So, there _is_ someone here.” 

Daichi throws himself backwards. 

The dark flowers of the nightshade plant narrowly miss his fingers, their soft petals brushing against them. Even with just a small flame lighting the garden row, it almost looks disappointed in how it slumps forward.

A bark of laughter rings through the garden, loud and clear and true. His eyes squeeze shut in a desperate attempt to calm his heart, but its frantic beat echoes through his ears regardless. 

Now that the person has made their presence known, Daichi can’t figure out how he missed it before. No one gets so close without him noticing. Maybe Ukai has managed it once or twice, and certainly Asahi with how his silent footsteps at odds with the rest of him. Not other people, though, not strangers that stand between the spooky rows of the community garden without care for how badly they startle him. 

The stranger chuckles to themselves, before it dies off with a low exhale. “Tell me. Just what would a handsome man like yourself be doing lurking around at this hour?” 

His eyes slowly open, one after the other. Any response Daichi might have conjured up to that question die at the sight beside him. At the man standing overhead, face alit with the orange light of the flame. 

Daichi quickly clears his throat and pulls the fire back towards him, before it acts like a moth, rather than the flame it is. Not that this man pays much attention to it, not that he needs to with the pointed tips of his ears poking out from beneath light-coloured hair. Few things constitute a clearer sign of non-human heritage, a rarity for all that most people in Sendai think it commonplace. If it weren’t for his handful of friends outside of Sendai, Daichi would believe the same.

Only Kuroo has nothing on this stranger, not when it comes to terms of beauty. Someone could write poems about him, about the curve of his smile and the mark beneath his eye. Daichi wants to write such a poem almost as much as he wants to touch that beauty mark, just to see if his skin is just as soft as it looks. Takeda might give him a few pointers on writing poetry. It might be worth departing from his strengths, for once. 

Light dances in the man’s eyes as he crouches down beside Daichi, chin supported by his own palm. From this distance, that dance should just be the conjured flame reflected back at him, but Daichi finds himself unconvinced by that solution. It is far too vivid a thing to be explained away so easily.

“Nightshade, then.” The man stares at the row of plants, amusement hidden away in his voice. “That is quite the choice in poison.” 

“It’s the-” Daichi cuts himself off with a groan. “You can use it for other things too, you know.” 

Another laugh is gifted to him for his half-hearted excuse. This time, Daichi catches how it brightens the man’s face, his breath taken in compensation for that glimpse. 

It isn’t fair. 

Nothing about this situation is fair, but this more than anything else. People should not be this attractive, cannot manage to pull Daichi in so easily without some part of the world collapsing in on itself. But that does not stop him from staring, a lump in the back of his throat and a thousand frantic thoughts swarming his head. Too close, those thoughts tell him, but his body insists that he is too far away. Too far to kiss without it being awkward, and that is not the type of person Daichi prides himself on being. 

Maybe the true shame in all this is that he’s been spending too much time with Asahi lately, because nothing else could explain how flustered he is.

“And are you using it for other things?” comes the follow-up question, a grin widening across the stranger’s face. 

A bit more mischief in the crook of those lips and they might just swallow Daichi whole.

That might just be inevitable, because in truth, what Ukai really uses this tincture for is beyond him. The poisonous side effects don’t effect tengu in the same way they would humans. 

Daichi prefers to think that the tinctures and creams and salves he makes don’t harm people. That is the explanation he offers up when people ask how his magic is maintained. But it is nothing more than a narrative of the younger Ukai being less strict than the elder. The strength of his magic does not reflect that, but on top of being less strict, Ukai is far from the stingy bastard he pretends to be. 

“That’s what I thought.” The man laughs again, smiling as if they’re sharing some sort of inside joke when Daichi does not defend himself further. “My name is Suga.” 

“Suga?” Daichi repeats, his stomach dropping. 

Suga beams at him. “Uh-huh, which makes you the nameless, yet handsome, thief who came into my garden in the middle of the night to steal my nightshade.” 

Of course this would be Suga - short for Sugawara, given name lost to magic and the power of secrets. Everyone in Sendai knows that name, would recognize it for more than the declaration of ownership carved into the garden’s front gate for everyone to see. Half of the town’s long-held myths and legends revolve around a man named Sugawara, Suga to some, and a deal between the tengu and a celestial being, of sorts. 

The same celestial being who is either teasing him or flirting with him, amusement growing with each twitch of Daichi’s face. It would be more reasonable if someone were jerking him around, someone who heard him complaining about never being able to get a date at the pub a few days back.

But no one would pretend to be Sugawara to do that. And the celestial part fits a bit too well, disjointed memories of Ukai talking about him as if he were a real person coming back to mind, half snide comments and half gruff affection. Because Ukai would know Sugawara. Daichi has always known that the Ukai family makes up the one half of those legends, though he assumed the other half was exaggerated. 

Exaggeration does not seem so likely anymore. His head drops as he stares at the ground, fingers twitching with the desire to run them through his hair. Only nightshade berries still fill his hands, fears of poisoning himself overtaking that desire. 

“You know,” Sugawara starts, “if you don’t want to tell me why you need those berries, we could always make a deal.” 

Daichi freezes, berries slipping from his fingers.

Sugawara meets his gaze head on, smile unwavering. “One little deal, that’s all I ask.” 

“I can’t,” he forces out, his voice nearly silent in dark of the garden. 

“You… can’t?” 

“Of course I can’t! I - my agreement with Ukai has been active for nearly a decade now. Giving that up now, that would change everything. My magic is just fine the way it is, thank you!”

The laughter is what makes his babble come to an abrupt halt. It is nothing like the surprised bark of laughter from before, and that much had been enough for Daichi to reconsider his life. 

That had been clear and loud, but this is something else. A snort between the giggles is an arrow to his heart, the full-bodied shaking a strike from shoulder to hip. This must be another reality, one where Daichi can make pretty men laugh until they cry. But the back of Sugawara’s head is visible, his forehead resting against his knees as he gasps for air, that much is undeniable. 

“That isn’t what I meant,” Sugawara finally forces out, lifting his head to reveal a smile, wide and for Daichi alone. “The last thing I would do is ask you to give up your magic, just because you snuck into a public garden.”

Daichi swallows, flustered panic slow to fade. “Would you make someone else give up their magic for that?” 

The smile lifts into something indescribable. “Maybe. For you, though, I have a different type of deal in mind.” 

“Whatever it is, I can handle it,” he says, firmly.

“Good. Because the only way I’ll keep this to myself is if you tell me your name, and…” 

“And?” 

“And if you go on a date with me.”

Daichi stares. 

All he gets for the effort is Sugawara staring back at him. The flame still hovering beside his head does not double, and then triple in size to consume them both. The earth does not open up beneath his feet to bury him alive. Even the nightshade plant does not snap forward to simultaneously burn and poison him. 

The world keeps on moving, and Sugawara does not waver. Only the silence between them acts as evidence towards that last statement, tension such as this impossible to have been borne from something else. Daichi has seen it a handful of times. Between Nishinoya asking Asahi out, between some of less subtle of Takeda’s poems, between most every couple he has met in his life, but never has he been so directly involved. 

“So, what do you say?” Sugawara asks him, breaking the silence. 

But not the tension.

Daichi takes in a deep breath. “My name is Sawamura Daichi. Would you like to go out with me? You… I would have really liked to go on a date with you before you made me ask, but I guess that’s what happens when you pick nightshade in the community garden at midnight.” 

“Oh, you were picking nightshade, were you?” Daichi groans at the pointed question, but Sugawara has softened in the last few moments, so close to fond. “And what sort of date do you intend to take me on, Sawamura Daichi?” 

A date where neither of them go around telling people his full name, Daichi nearly says. But there is something to the weight of Sugawara’s gaze that makes this more serious than that comment implies. There is something to Sugawara saying his name, that part of him that only a handful of people know, that makes his cheeks warm, his tongue wet his lips.

“An amazing one,” he says, simply. “It’s better if I don’t ruin the details now, actually. But it will be the kind of date where I sweep you off your feet. No one will ever manage to take you on a better date than I will.” 

His grin fades to nothing for a brief moment, before Sugawara presses his knuckles to his lips, smile returning with double its previous force. “I agree, then. Now, do I have to wait until after the date for you to kiss me, or…?” 

“I would, but you see, my hands are full of nightshade berries right now, and-” 

Sugawara firmly cuts him off by kissing him, berries tumbling to the ground as Daichi finds himself kissing back.


End file.
